Identity Unknown : The gripping new Kay Scarpetta thriller for 2024

Author: Cornwell, Patricia

Crime & mystery

Published on 17 July 2025 by Little, Brown Book Group (Sphere) in the United Kingdom as part of 'the Kay Scarpetta' series.

Paperback / softback | 400 pages
143 x 245 x 31 | 278g

THE THRILLING NEW KAY SCARPETTA MYSTERY FROM THE WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER'Iconic. Bold. Brilliant. Identity Unknown is hauntingly original, impossibly clever and devilishly daring. This series is one of the all-time greats' CHRIS WHITAKER, author of ALL THE COLOURS OF THE DARKSummoned to an unnerving, abandoned theme park to retrieve a body, Dr Kay Scarpetta is devastated to learn that the victim is Sal Giordano, an acclaimed astrophysicist - and a man Scarpetta once loved.

The murder scene is bizarre, with a crop circle of petals around the body. Scarpetta's niece Lucy believes Giordano was dropped from an unidentified flying craft. Scarpetta knows autopsies can reveal the dead's secrets, but she is shocked to find her friend seems to have deliberately left her a clue.

As the investigators are torn between suspicions of otherworldly forces, and of Giordano himself, Scarpetta detects an explanation closer to home that, in her mind, is far more evil . . .

'Nerve-jangling . . . A thriller that's out of this world' THE TIMES'Heart-stopping' SUNDAY POST'Cornwell on vintage form' FINANCIAL TIMES